You need top talent in order to grow and earn a profit as a company. But attracting and retaining talented and skilled professionals is one of the greatest challenges facing organisations today. Once you have found the people you need to take or keep you at the top, it is only logical that you keep them at any cost.Remember, as the Rwandan job market opens up and more investment trickles into the economy, the need for skilled and talented people becomes even stiffer as firms seek to marshal top-notch human capital.“Talent management or human capital management entails the recruitment of highly skilled labour, integrating new workers and developing and retaining current workers to meet the goals and objectives of the organisation,” says Dan Ntagugura, an associate with KPS Associates, a human resources consultancy.Rwanda must establish talent management strategies within organisations allowing them to be strategic in how they source, engage, train, motivate and even promote their employees. It should, however, be understood that the right people can only be identified depending on their achievements over time.However, the question is how a company can retain such highly skilled workers.“Performance management, which looks at training and evaluating the workforce in a firm, is key for any organisation. The best performing employees have to be motivated and rewarded by getting pay rises, promotions and other incentives. You need to find a way of retaining them as you will find that they are always on the head-hunter lists,” says Vincent Kimani, a human resource consultant with RUMA Consult.According to Kimani, apart from the regular pay increments, giving workers bonuses and promotions are key in retaining high performers.“An employer should always ask what else his or her employee is hoping to get from their future employer that they aren’t currently getting with him or her, in case the employee is offered a new job. Otherwise, other firms will ‘snatch’ them before you know it,” he explains.As a human resource manager or recruiting consultant, these questions should always ring a sounding bell in your mind. Can you help your top performers stay motivated, interested and, most importantly, stay with you? All this boils down to good management, an essential ingredient in staff retention.To be a good employee, however, you have to know what is required of you. When you go to a new employer, there is supposed to be a policy as regards the organisation showing when you are supposed to be at work and the job description. Once you know all this and put it to work then you are a good employee.
